Israelis Hash Out Egypt Dael

January 13, 1986|By Ray Moseley, Chicago Tribune.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli government agreed Monday on terms for settling a crucial Sinai land dispute with Egypt. If Egypt accepts the agreement, it is expected to pave the way for a normalization of relations between the two countries after a three-year freeze.

The decision, taken by an inner Cabinet group of 10 men, came after a marathon, all-night session lasting nearly 13 hours that ended shortly before 7 a.m. It was a victory for Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who had threatened to resign and force new elections if the decision went against him.

Some members of the Likud faction, uneasy partners of Peres` Labor Party in a government of national unity formed 16 months ago, were reluctant to agree to Peres` proposal for international arbitration to settle the dispute and wanted to press stiffer terms on Egypt.

But, faced with Peres` threat of forcing new elections, they eventually accepted a package that calls for an attempt to settle the dispute through nonbinding conciliation and, if that fails, to submit it to binding international arbitration.

The agreement also pledges both countries not to allow their territory to be used for acts of terror and to desist from hostile propaganda toward each other.

Political sources said the all-night meeting was often stormy and had to be broken off several times.

The dispute between Israel and Egypt is over a coastal strip of land on the Gulf of Aqaba called Taba. When Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt in 1982, under terms of their Camp David peace agreement, it held onto Taba, which covers less than 1 square mile.

An Israeli-operated, 360-room luxury hotel opened in Taba in November 1982, making it a valuable piece of real estate.

Egypt insists Taba is within its territory, according to maps drawn in 1948 at the end of the first Arab-Israeli war. Israel bases its claim on maps drawn in 1906.

In 1982, following Israel`s invasion of Lebanon, Egypt froze its relations with Israel in protest and recalled its ambassador. But Egypt promised in recent talks to restore normal relations if Israel would accept international arbitration of the land dispute. Whether it will now accept conciliation talks as a prelude to arbitration remains to be seen.

Even after agreeing to submit the dispute to arbitration, Egypt and Israel would still have to decide the critical matters of who the arbitrator would be and how the dispute would be presented. These questions could take months to resolve.

The Egytian-Israeli talks that led to the inner Cabinet meeting were held at the Foreign Ministry level and Peres said all points in dispute had been resolved. But some Likud ministers demanded that Israel should try to pin down Egypt to more precise details on such questions as when it would again send an ambassador to Israel and what kind of access to Taba would be enjoyed by the loser in the negotiations.

They also demanded that Egypt be required to pledge it would not assist the Palestine Liberation Organization.

But Peres said such matters could be taken up in bilateral talks before arbitration begins. He said Israel had received all the clarifications it sought from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and that he would refuse to ask for more.

The confrontation was one of the most difficult that has arisen between Labor and Likud since they set up the unique unity government. The last election, in 1984, left both sides short of a majority in the Knesset, or parliament, and neither was able to form a government without the support of the other.

Under terms of their unity agreement, Peres will serve as prime minister until next fall, then will hand over the reins to Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir, currently foreign minister.